Can a clever trickster change the rules of a game?
Image: Original: Unknown Source: Institute of Human Thermodynamics and IoHT Publishing Ltd., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Demon (thought experiment)
Can a clever trickster change the rules of a game?
Imagine you're at a party where everyone wants to leave at the same time, causing chaos. You want to help people exit smoothly without causing a stampede.
Picture someone who can peek into people's minds and know when they're about to leave. They can then let them out one by one, making the exit orderly. This thought experiment shows that if you had perfect knowledge (information), you could seemingly defy the natural tendency for things to go from order to disorder (entropy).
Example
If you knew exactly when everyone was ready to leave, you could let them out in a perfect sequence, avoiding the mess.
Remember this
This idea challenges the belief that information alone can't change the fundamental direction of natural processes.
Text adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Related concepts
Uncertainty principle
Landauer's principle resolves: erasing one bit of information dissipates at least kT ln 2 of energy
Fermi paradox
Information paradox questions black hole information fate
Information
Can black holes erase information forever?
Relativity of simultaneity
Simultaneity depends on the observer's motion
Measurement in quantum mechanics
Quantum states describe probabilities, not certainties
Physical paradox
Einstein argued entanglement implied either hidden variables or nonlocality
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